I would say that too, Cattleman. But someone is bound to ask why, sooner or later.

Yes Gramps, and my answer would be "because they are fellow human beings". We are really saying the same thing. I'm just trying to point out that you don't need the language of "rights" to say it. And that means you don't need all the theoretical baggage that goes with "Rights" talk.

But, of course, the question can be asked again (as it can with "rights"), but I actually think I can give a better response than something about "creator endowed". Its probably best summed up in this simplified version of what's called "Kant's categorical imperative" which says: "Human beings aren't "things" so its wrong to treat them as if they were".

The point is that morality has a bottom line. A point at which there is nothing more to say. So, for example, if my daughter breaks the law, I hide her from the police, and then someone asks "why did you do that?" All I can say, and all I need to say is "because she's my daughter". If they try and push you further than this then there's nowhere to go.

But that's true of any kind of enquiry, including science, there's a point at which there's no further level of explanation to appeal to.

Like Gramps I'm saying that the ultimate basis of morality is empathy.

But its a madhouse around here and I'll get back to you later.

OK. Next, you promised us something re authority.

Well, you seem to assume that morality requires some authority to implement it. I'm not sure I can see why. You certainly need it for the Law, but why for morality. I don't think slavery is wrong because I was told it was wrong, I think its wrong because its wrong.

I basically believe that, ultimately, morality is a product of our understanding of who we are and what we are, you don't need some big guy in the sky saying "these are the rules and if you don't obey them you are in deep do-do". In fact, I'm not really keen on the kind of view that morality involves a set of rules that require obedience. In other words if I was religious I'd take a lot more notice of the Sermon on the Mount than I would of the ten Commandments.

Of course, all of this depends on what you mean by "authority" (or, probably more precisely, what kind of "authority" you are talking about). There's a huge difference between the arbitrary "authority" of a dictator, the delegated "authority" of a representative and the "authority" someone may have because of their knowledge and presumed wisdom - and that's just for starters.

In the moral arena (as opposed to the legal arena) I can't see why we need any of them, but of them only the third has any real relevance.

Ultimately, as I said morality comes from our intellect, our empathetic ability and our social existence. That gives us the potential for moral development. We are the ultimate arbiters. Morality, after all is about how we should live our lives.

That's a kind of similarity between my position and the belief in "natural and "inalienable" rights. We both believe that morality comes out our development as social animals. Its just that we have different stories about how that development occurred, and mine is a far more accurate story .....

You have me confused with Woolen Norma. I don't see anything in your post that I disagree with.

Edit to say I take back the bit about Norma. And to say (re your 1st paragraph) that I don't assume morality requires some authority to implement it, and (re your last paragraph) I don't think we have different stories. I didn't mean to give the impression during this exchange that I think we need a creator or divine authority to form our moral codes or rights.

I work for a church. Not long ago I was asked to mentor a kid through a program of studying the tenets and practices of this church's brand of Christianity. I did pretty well with the theology explanations and the history and all that, but not with the issue of Biblical authority.

Lawrence Kohlberg wrote on a theory of moral development that has many similarities to the ideas you are espousing, Cattleman.

I abjectly apologise if in any way I seemed to compare you with Woolly Gramps and hope you won't sue me for libel.

I suppose I wasn't clear, but I got the impression that the only alternative you could see to some form of inalienable and inherent rights were ones that came from some external authority. Here's the quote from #38 that gave me that idea:

From the discussion so far, it seems a right, if it even exists, has to derive from something, some authority has to confer it. Whatever the authority - creator, culture, custom or ones own iron will - if it can confer something, then it can also un-confer it. Even Jefferson's creator might decide to smite some poor schmuck for good reason, and there goes the unalienable right to life. So I have been convinced that No, as long as rights derive from some authority, they are by definition not unalienable. The most I can say is that they ought not be alienated.


And the "different stories" I'm referring to aren't "yours" and "mine", but the stories that underpin different views of the foundation of "rights" and government more generally. I'll get back to those when I wake up a bit more.

Thanks for the reference Queen. I'm not familiar with the guy but I'll look him up. Obviously there are a lot of influences at work in developing the views I have, but I don't really want to do the "academic" thing and fill a post with references.
Also, a lot of what I'm saying comes out of long discussions with one of my best friends and occasional collaborator.

Cattleman, in that quote I was referring to the rights implicit in the our Bill of Rights (which I think were were our topic) esp. the first Amendment. They do rely on the authority of the Constitution and its interpreters. They are not unalienable for that reason. Morality is a different thing altogether, as you noted. Sorry for not communicating well.

Well, I think there were faults on my side Gramps. But something as complex as this is bound to lead to a few misunderstandings.

I'd like to say more about the basis of the different views on rights as well as more about the origins of morality, but we have the electricians in and the power might need to be shut down at any point and I'll be away tomorrow and won't be back until the next day (picking up our new car), so I mightn't be able to for a while.

One of the best discussions in a while, IMO.

I suppose I wasn't clear, but I got the impression that the only alternative you could see to some form of inalienable and inherent rights were ones that came from some external authority. Here's the quote from #38 that gave me that idea:

They may not come from some external authority but I suggest they can only exist if allowed by an external authority. When we are born we have all rights. If we could survive and if there was no external guideance we could do anything we wished as a "right". However, within minutes of being born those rights start to be curtailed by external powers beginning with out parents and then, as time passes, by the wider social authorities of family, friends and government. In the end many of our rights are completely subjugated by external authority while others are somewhat circumscribed. In Canada, for example, we supposedly have "freedom of speech" but that "right" is very tightly constrained, not just by things like not yelling fire in a theatre, but by the effect our exercising that freedom may have on others. A person cannot, for example, talk about hating Muslims, Jews, gays or any other identifiable group without attracting criminal charges. That may be a moral and admirable restriction but it is a restriction imposed from an external authority nonetheless. In short, our "inherent" rights are very much only those allowed by an external authority.

Incidentally, that authority is always man made, never imposed by some mysterious man in the sky. Men may point to that supernatural being and say their authority comes from Him but the reality is that, even if the being existed, they are simply imposing their interpretation of what they believe he wants.

Actually Jim what I mean by an "external authority" is rather different to that, but you've given me the perfect "in" to the "stories" I want to tell - particularly this bit:
When we are born we have all rights. If we could survive and if there was no external guideance we could do anything we wished as a "right

We need a bit of context to start though. The idea that we have "inherent" or "natural rights" essentially goes back to the 17th century. It was a time when Rationalism had become the dominant view. Unlike earlier accounts of the nature and function of government and the law etc., which had usually been theological, the new rationality looked to science as a primary source of knowledge. And the science of the time saw the universe in mechanistic terms, as a vast clockwork. If you could just work out how all the bits meshed together and interacted then you could understand how the world worked. But how do you apply such an idea to social and political structures, and particularly to the question of what was the limit to monarchical power - a rather major issue at the time?

The way they tried to do it relied on what we would now call a "thought experiment". If we want to understand what Government is then lets imagine what it would be like if there was no Government. This was called "a state of Nature".

As only to expected, there were some rather different views put forward, and very different conclusions drawn, but they pretty much all agreed that in the state of Nature individual humans were like Jim's babies - they had all possible "rights" and could basically do whatever they wanted with no outside restraint on their actions.

But the theorist that is most relevant to this discussion is John Locke, who's account of the outcomes of such a situation were a major influence on Thomas Jefferson.

To be continued ...........

Cattleman, I just thought you might enjoy reading some of his work, not necessarily to reference it. He was a Harvard guy. He eventually committed suicide when he could no longer bear the pain of a parasite he had ingested while traveling in South America years earlier. He walked into the ocean and his body washed up on the beach in front of my house months later. Circa mid/late nineties.

Thanks Queen. I'll check it out.

As promised .....

Locke's view of the "State of Nature, unlike someone like Hobbes, was very positive in lots of ways. Even in such a state people would still be relatively pleasant. They would also be basically moral. God, after all, was still watching over them. They would be constrained by these considerations, but it would be voluntary and they would still have all possible rights, given by God, because there was no legal restraint on anything they might do.

More than this the "State of Nature" would have been a time of very low population where any man (and, yes ONLY men) could go into the wilderness and tame their own land. This would become their property as they had "mixed their labor with the land". Their property was a part of them.

But, even in this basically idyllic situation there is a serpent lurking.

The thing is that, absent any kind of organised authority or system of law, we all had to seek our own justice. In effect, we all became the judges in our own cases when some dispute or grievance arose (as they invariably do). And, being humans we tend to be very lousy when it comes to doing that. We tend to be partial. We exaggerate the harms done to us, and play down the harm we do to others.

So if there's a dispute between you and me, over who owns a particular piece of land or who's cow that one is, or any of the other multiple possibilities, I am likely to judge one way while you judge the other. Now that we feel justice is on our side, the dispute becomes even more intense. And that is the only way it can go since there is no means to settle it.

Ultimately the only way to solve it is through violence, and that is the beginning of vendetta politics. And vendetta's always lead to more injustices and so it continues. Eventually we all become Hatfields and McCoys. In individually seeking justice we actually create more injustice. It ultimately becomes what Hobbes described as a constant war of all against all.

There is only one way we can solve such a situation and that is by getting together andmaking a compact which sets aside some group or groups, however selected, to create the laws and administer justice. And the only way we can do this is by giving up some of our rights - particularly the ones which deal with justice - and assigning them to the group as a whole. This is what has been called "The Social Contract".

The key point, however, is that we only have to give up SOME rights. The rest we retain in perpetuity. They are what becomes the "Rights of Man".

Its fit with what became the US in the late 18th century is, from my point of view, quite remarkable. It underlies not only the constitution but so much of what we might call political culture. The ideas resonated with the people of the times and that cultural resonance continues in these very different times.

Its a nice story. I can see its attractions. But its got gaping logical and empirical flaws. To understand them we need to consider another story.

And, for the final instalment ....

The first is a simple logical point. Just because people can do whatever they want to in Locke's state of nature, why does that mean they have a "right" to do it? Do I have the "right" to beat my dog to death? What about starving or sexually abusing my children? Or maybe beating my wife? I could do any of those things, or worse in a state of nature. Does that mean I have a "Right" to do them?

But even more fundamentally, the myth of a "state of Nature" isn't only a myth, but a myth that gets just about everything back to front.

Fully formed individuals never got together to create a "social contract" at all, and they couldn't for the simple reason that society preceded humanity. Its not just that Humans have always been social animals, but that our ancestors were social before they were fully human. So many of the distinctive things about Humans only make sense as a product of the evolution of social animals (language, for a start), that its the most obvious explanation

So what really needs to be explained isn't the origin of society, but how thoroughly social animals can develop individuality. The "individual rights" we have in our society aren't the basis, they are the product of social action.
Which means Jim's new born baby isn't born with all their rights intact, but which are then eroded by powers greater than them, they are born with the rights accorded to them by the society they live in. As they grow and develop their rights grow and develop as well.

To be fair the assumptions of the natural rights theories were the assumptions of a society which knew little anthropology and nothing of evolution. They presented a false account of the creation of human society because an alternative explanation wasn't available.

But the thing about the myth is that it persists until today, and mostly with pernicious consequences.